3 results for tag: #criminaljustice

New commission creates statewide standards for Colorado jails

June 23, 2024 By: Zachary Dupont The commission was made up of people with varied backgrounds, including members of law enforcement, victims' rights advocates and mental health specialists. Vincent Atchity, the president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado, who served on the commission, discussed how the variety of backgrounds was greatly beneficial. “It's an unusual space to be in where you've got, on the one hand, the health advocates, and on the other hand the jail-commander types,” Atchity said. “I think that there was all kinds of good ground for collaborative formulation of standards that made sense to people.” Among some of ...

Colorado has the nation’s third-longest waitlist for people charged with crimes and ordered into psychiatric treatment

January 24, 2024 By: Jennifer Brown But private hospitals typically do not take patients who have been ordered into treatment through the criminal justice system. And private hospitals often do not take people with the most severe behavioral problems or those who cannot pay, which means state hospitals are sometimes the only option. Mental Health Colorado president Vincent Atchity called on Colorado to “disentangle” mental health care from the criminal justice system. “The number of people being held in Colorado jails when they should be getting health care is an unacceptable tragedy,” he said. “Not only are their rights being ...

Solitary Confinement Reform Challenges Spotlight Mental Health Care Need

October 18, 2023 By: Vincent Atchity A new law went into effect in July 2022 that limits how Colorado jails and prisons can use solitary confinement for people with certain mental and physical health needs. Some advocates saw the law as a small step forward toward the elimination of solitary confinement, which is associated with numerous health risks including increased suicide risk. Those advocates are right. It would be a small step forward, but only if it were fully implemented. Full implementation, however, is difficult to accomplish in many, perhaps most, counties. For example, Boulder County Jail, where more than half of the individuals ...